


A Gift of Self

by bluebottle762



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dragon Shifter AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebottle762/pseuds/bluebottle762
Summary: The Sever: The final act of the Great War before the negotiations, where by a group of mages had performed the rite by which Dragons had been permanently parted from their souls. Now, to keep their minds and sense of self in-tact, they must bond a human soul to their own. Prompto isn't ready.





	A Gift of Self

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FallenAkito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenAkito/gifts).



“You look… Very nervous.” Too-bright purple eyes found his across the room, unreadable, and he looked away sharply. The irises were too big and too vivid to be even remotely human, slit pupiled and electric-bright, striking some invisible line between stunning and terrifying. The way they barely blinked or left him wasn’t helping.

“I guess.” It was a vague answer, quiet and avoidant and far too belying of his all-consuming anxiety, his voice strained and scratchy. Reflexively gripping at his knees in an attempt to anchor himself, he stared down at his hands and willed Noctis to look away. Instead, he felt his heart catch in his throat as he caught sight of his left hand again, the remaining two joints of his little finger curling harshly against the fabric of his pants. It shouldn’t have been as alarming as it was, this at least was something he had been prepared for well in advance. The bonding required a flesh sacrifice, old blood magic that is was. The first third of the left little finger was typical, a mark often used as an identifier for the bonded. He’d seen some even go so far as to accentuate it, wearing elegantly engraved thimbles, or finely tailored gloves, like it was a strange sort of status symbol. In a lot of ways, it was.

Soul bonding: a brutal necessity dressed up in gem studded status. He’d always wondered how the dragons felt about that. Salt to an age old wound. _We split the world to part you from your souls, to make you dependant and controllable, now watch as we wear it like a king wears a crown. Accept us, we are the new world order._

“You know it’s,” Noctis shifted where he stood, evidently trying to stop himself from pacing. “This is a first for me as well. You’re- You will be my first.” He sounded unsure, tentative even, but Prompto didn’t want to think about that right now. In his mind he wasn’t allowed to be nervous. Nothing that terribly beautiful had the right to everyday person anxieties.

He chanced another glance at him. Noctis didn’t look very human right now, that was for sure. They’d warned him of that, before he’d met him, that first bonds were always rough, dragons usually going as long as physically possible without a bonded soul before submitting to it. He knew Noct hadn’t pushed it as far as he could have, he was maybe 50 years old at most, which for dragons barely even counted as an adult. They were more or less equivalent there at least. Prompto wasn’t sure if that was a comfort or not.

Nothing about Noctis right now was comforting. He was between shapes, as it were, neither one thing nor the other. Human sized and human shaped in general terms (Barely taller than Prompto himself, which had come as a shock) but staggeringly off.

Iridescent black scales, curved and polished like fine armour, covered the back of his neck and jaw, travelling up over temples and brow to meet over his nose. They fanned out over his cheekbones too, all the way up to the very edge of his eye. This perhaps was where they were most discomforting, for as the patch of shimmer black travelled down his cheek, invading the softer, fleshier part, they had come loose, leaving in their wake a series of elliptical marks; pitted and pink against the otherwise unmarred skin. A few glistened pearlescent as new scales grew in, as if someone had embedded a grain of rice there. It was disquieting. His forehead likewise was interrupted by a small pair of curved horns, sweeping back from his face and into his hair, thin and silvery.

Prompto’s gaze lingered at the base of his throat where pale skin and dark scales started to blend and disappear under his shirt.

“Prompto?” Noctis was still watching him carefully, his thin hands coming to rest delicately on the back of a chair, dark claw like nails clicking against the polished wood. Opening his mouth as if about to speak, he hesitated, looking away at long last and frowning. The diffuse grey light from the window caught at his profile, reflecting off his scales to further illuminate those staggering eyes. Whatever he’d been trying to say died there in the heavy silence.

The soft creak of the door startled both of them, amplified as it was by the building atmosphere.

It was time.

* * *

 

Sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, Prompto watched the flickering fire in the circular sunken pit before him. It was easier to look at than the man across from him. Shrouded in the flickering half light, Noctis seemed to meld into the darkness around them. The glisten of his scales and the eerie luminescence of his eyes his only discernible features besides the elegant curve of those unearthly horns. In the dancing fire light, they appeared to move and grow when not looked at directly.

He’d seen the room before when he was younger, in daylight when the floor had needed sweeping, the necessary materials restocking, and the fire pit cleared. Circular in shape, the room resided in a tower high up above the rest of the complex, topped by a great glass dome of intricate iron and paneled glass said to be a marvel in its own right. Despite its significance, the space was a mere fifteen feet in diameter with high walls and minimal furnishings. The only entrance to the room, a pair of arched and intricately carved wooden doors (Depicting the Sever: The final act of the Great War before the negotiations, where by a group of mages had performed the rite by which Dragons had been permanently parted from their souls.) prominently featuring the human warrior of old, Gilgamesh, arm extended with heart in hand. On the opposing wall, a mosaic of precious and polished stone depicted his match, the first Dragon Lord, glittering and life-like even in the daylight. They had been the first bond. It was under this glittering masterpiece that Noctis now sat, cross-legged and waiting.

Prompto’s heart beat fast inside his chest, a persistent rhythm born of driving fear and focused intent. He had to lead this, it was how it was done.  Focusing his attention on the shallow wooden bowl in front of him and the dried herbs within it, he made himself breath, collecting the necessary bravery to continue. Scooping up the little dish one handedly, he looked up at Noctis, locking eyes across the flames swaying between them like dancers. Lifting the bowl from the floor, he held it out in front of him and watched as Noctis mimicked the motion, never letting his gaze waver from him. In sync then, they tipped the contents of their offering bowls into the consuming flames. A sharp smell hit Prompto with what felt like a physical force, eye-wateringly overwhelming but almost sweet, and all at once the familiar shapes of the room around him fell away.

The world was fire and sky and stars, with no point of familiarity on which to anchor himself. Everything seemingly folded in and over itself like a kaleidoscope, shifting and fractal. A sensation of falling _upwards_ gripped him, similar to the feeling of misjudging the number of steps in a flight of stairs going up, except it was all of him that failed to make contact with the floor and not just his feet. He felt more disorientated than he had ever felt, possibly more than he would ever feel.

Slowly, the space he was occupying began to untangle itself, shifting into soft focus - still hazy and dreamlike, too full of light and unhearable sound. With a sickening jolt, he found himself pitching forward, his hands coming into contact with a surface he couldn’t quite make out. If it was a black granite floor or a dark carpet off stars, he couldn’t be sure. Finally he felt like he could breathe again, and did so in great shuddering gasps.

They were not in the tower room, but perhaps they were in some proximation of it, surrounded by galaxies, the fire still dancing between them. Terrified of what he might see, Prompto cautiously lifted his head to look at where Noctis should still be seated.

A great beast, armoured in inky black pearlescent scales and curving silver horns, large enough to fill a grand hall. A young man, naked, pale and handsome, dark hair falling into his bright blue eyes. The creature he had seen before, not quite one thing nor the other but closer in shape to the man, and one similar but not so human. A child, small and soft and fragile, delicately built, tiny hands clutching a small ceramic charm desperately to his chest. At the centre of it all, a beating golden light, crystalline and bright, a thousand blue flecked butterflies clustered together to form a living heart.

Noctis. They were all Noctis. All at once.

Noctis looked up at him then, both with impossibly large slit pupiled electric purple eyes, and the smaller and more mundae chilled blue pair. He did not speak, but Prompto knew he had called out to him.

_Cross through the fire. Come to me. Give me all that you are. Bind yourself to me._

Flames licking ineffectually at his own imperfect nakedness, he crossed. Steady footed and sure. Stopping short in front of Noctis, the ridge of his snout, the base of his horns, the plane of his chest and the angle of his shoulders- all close enough to touch, they surveyed each other. Prompto wondered what it was he saw when he looked at him, if he appeared as focused as he felt, or if he too, was a shattered reflection of himself.

Placing the flat of his palm against his chest, he could feel his heart beating softly against his ribs, pleading for release. He allowed it. It slipped from him easily, leaving no wound or mark to acknowledge its passing. It pulsed in his grasp, blue and faceted, still warm with his life’s blood, like cut glass heated by the sun. Wordlessly, he offered it forward.

Noctis’ gaze had slipped from Prompto’s features to the small and fragile thing held between them, but he did not reach forward to take it.

Pitch talons raked at at scaled skin as blunt nails dug into pale flesh, as if caught between two mirrors where each reflection stretching off into infinity was ever so subtly different from the last. Prying open his chest bloodlessly and without noise, he laid himself bare before Prompto, revealing the fluttering, blue speckled gold at his core.

_A gift of the self cannot be taken, only given, fully and without lead._

Reaching into him, past bone and flesh and damp organic heat, Prompto offered his all. The shifting wings responded with a flurry of activity, a few of their number going so far as to part company with the whole and settle on Prompto’s wrists as they shifted to accept his offering. Nestling his heart within the golden confines of Noctis’ own, he watched as it disappeared from view, the butterflies that had deigned to settle on him skittering back into place almost feverishly.

Prompto’s hands withdrew, then came to rest at the back of Noctis’ wrists, guiding the process of pushing ribs and muscle back into place where it knitted seamlessly once more. He lingered, eyes trained on their point of contact, unfocused and lost in thought. He could feel Noct watching him. Pressing in close felt natural, even naked as they were. Entering his space, he lay his hands flat against him- his chest, or perhaps the flat of his snout - and rested his head against him. Parting his lips, he breathed evenly, feeling Noctis shift to accommodate him, scale and skin.

“Prompto…” The word wasn’t sound so much as feeling, a reverberation through the very marrow of his bones. As it dawned on him to respond with all the speed of a sunrise, he could already feel the world unravelling around them. Their time here was done, and now they must answer to the rest of the world, alone, in things so bland as words.


End file.
